Preemptive content distribution

ABSTRACT

An aspect of preemptive distribution of content includes monitoring content accessed in a local cache of a computing device. A time and a location of content accesses in the local cache are tracked. Prefetching heuristics are determined based on patterns of the time and the location of the content accesses. The prefetching heuristics are applied to speculatively prefetch additional content prior to the computing device receiving a request to access the additional content.

BACKGROUND

The present disclosure generally relates to computer file locationmanagement, and more specifically, to preemptive distribution of contentbased on spatial and temporal proximity of historical media consumption.

In typical systems, a computing device connects to a server and mayreceive data files and other content from the server via an Internetconnection. In some systems, a distributed, block-based, network cacheor web cache may be used to reduce the time and bandwidth used to sendcontent to computing devices. For example, a network cache may belocated in a wireless router, or other network device. The network cachestores copies of data passing through the network cache so thatsubsequent requests for the data may be sent from the network cache tothe requesting device(s). Furthermore, computing device users mayfrequently access and locally cache files related to participation inparticular peer groups, such as professional teams, volunteerorganizations, or hobby groups.

SUMMARY

According to an embodiment, a method of preemptive distribution ofcontent includes monitoring content accessed in a local cache of acomputing device. A time and a location of content accesses in the localcache are tracked. Prefetching heuristics are determined based onpatterns of the time and the location of the content accesses. Theprefetching heuristics are applied to speculatively prefetch additionalcontent prior to the computing device receiving a request to access theadditional content.

According to another embodiment, a system for preemptive distribution ofcontent includes a memory having computer readable instructions and aprocessor for executing the computer readable instructions. The computerreadable instructions include monitoring content accessed in a localcache of a computing device. A time and a location of content accessesin the local cache are tracked. Prefetching heuristics are determinedbased on patterns of the time and the location of the content accesses.The prefetching heuristics are applied to speculatively prefetchadditional content prior to the computing device receiving a request toaccess the additional content.

According to yet another embodiment, a computer program product includesa computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodiedtherewith. The program instructions are executable by a processor tocause the processor to perform monitoring of content accessed in a localcache of a computing device. A time and a location of content accessesin the local cache are tracked. Prefetching heuristics are determinedbased on patterns of the time and the location of the content accesses.The prefetching heuristics are applied to speculatively prefetchadditional content prior to the computing device receiving a request toaccess the additional content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of asystem;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of asystem;

FIG. 3 illustrates a further example of a block diagram of an exemplaryembodiment of a system; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow diagram of a process for preemptivedistribution of content according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The embodiments described herein provide a system and method forpreemptive distribution of content based on spatial and temporalproximity of historical media consumption. Embodiments enable computingdevices to learn file access patterns and become proactive in fetchingand caching new versions of related content. User access patterns may beobserved to initiate prefetching (i.e., requesting) of content ratherthan preemptive pattern-triggered distribution from a source.

Embodiments can record a time and a location that caching activity tookplace and use this information to predict periodic data accesses. Forinstance, a most-recently used (MRU) stack in prefetch memory of acomputing device can be used for speculative prefetching as furtherdescribed herein. To provide more user flexibility and control, eachcomputing device may configure preferences for on-demand caching andprefetching. For instance, users can specify how much memory to use forcaching on their device and how much memory to use for prefetching.Prefetching heuristics can be learned from a history of cache eventsthat is accumulated over time.

Any data that a user requests can be cached on-demand. Using a leastrecently used (LRU) based preference model, less frequently used dataare evicted from the cache as needed. A content prefetcher can learnwhich data to add to prefetch memory based on time and location history.Locality hints that identify physical proximity of a computing device toother computing devices can also be used to learn which content shouldbe prefetched. Prefetched content can be ordered sequentially to trackmost recently used content and to evict content that is used once (whichis unlikely to be used again). Filenames can be generated by usingpattern matching on expected content (e.g., sequential or time-basedfile naming).

When a read request is made, content is fetched and added to cachememory. Data can be evicted according to the speculative replacementpolicy. A recorded time and location can be used by the contentprefetcher to learn what data will likely be needed in the future,allowing the content prefetcher to anticipate future caching events.Hints, such as locality patterns that intersect with the present time aswell as location patterns that intersect with a user's short-term futurelocation (e.g., if presently en route as determined using calendaringentries, etc.), can be used to increase prediction accuracy. Prefetchingcan improve the availability of sequential data by leveraging relativeposition in a sequence of accesses to determine what content will beused next in sequence. Hints for speculative prefetching can becomplimentary to MRU policy decisions. For example, priority may begiven to hint-based prefetching to take precedence over MRU policydecisions.

Turning now to FIG. 1, an example of a system 100 upon which preemptivedistribution of content may be implemented will now be described ingreater detail. The system 100 represents a networked environment, suchas the Internet, where messages, files, events, audio streams, videostreams, and the like can be transmitted as content between one or morecomputing devices.

In the example depicted in FIG. 1, the system 100 includes a contentserver 102 and one or more computing devices 104A-N operable tocommunicate over a network 106. The network 106 may be any type ofcommunications network known in the art and can include a combination ofwireless, wired, and/or fiber optic links. Although only a singlecontent server 102 and three computing devices 104A-N are depicted inFIG. 1, it will be understood that there can be any number of contentservers 102 and computing devices 104A-N that can interface with eachother and various networked components across the network 106. Further,one or more of the computing devices 104A-N may also be the contentserver 102.

In exemplary embodiments, the content server 102 and/or computingdevices 104A-N can include a variety of processing devices withprocessing circuits and I/O interfaces, such as a keys/buttons, atouchscreen, audio input, a display device and audio output. The contentserver 102 and computing devices 104A-N may be embodied in any type ofcomputer device known in the art, such as a laptop, tablet computer,mobile device, personal computer, workstation, server, and the like.Accordingly, the content server 102 and computing devices 104A-N caninclude various computer/communication hardware and software technologyknown in the art, such as one or more processing units or circuits,volatile and non-volatile memory including removable media, powersupplies, network interfaces, support circuitry, operating systems, andthe like.

The content server 102 can make content 108, such as one or moreelectronic files, available to the computing devices 104A-N. Each of thecomputing devices 104A-N can include a respective instance of a contentprefetcher 110A-N that monitors for patterns of requests to access thecontent 108. When content 108 is retrieved from the content server 102in response to a user request, it can be locally cached at each of thecomputing devices 104A-N. When a user subsequently requests to accessthe content 108, the locally cached copy of the content 108 may be used.Embodiments of the content prefetcher 110A-N can learn patternsregarding when the content 108 (which may be regularly updated orsuperseded) is typically accessed by users of the computing devices104A-N and preemptively prefetch the content 108 at a future point intime such that the content 108 may already be locally available at thecomputing devices 104A-N prior to receiving a user-based request toretrieve the content 108. To improve prediction accuracy forprefetching, factors such as time and location of access requests of thecontent 108 are tracked by the content prefetcher 110A-N.

The content prefetcher 110A-N can also track local proximity of othercomputing devices 104A-N to infer group membership information, wheremembers of the group may also seek to access the content 108. Groupmembership information can be used as another variable for patternidentification, where a substantially common group of the computingdevices 104A-N is regularly at a common location and accesses thecontent 108 at about the same time (e.g., within 15 minutes of eachother). Group members may also request or prefetch the content 108 fromeach other, for instance, if access to the content server 102 isunavailable prior to an expected time of access.

In the example of FIG. 1, computing devices 104A and 104B are within aphysical proximity range 116 and form a group 118 at a particular momentin time. Computing device 104N may presently be outside of the physicalproximity range 116 or have an activation status of sleeping ordepowered. The physical proximity range 116 may define a distance orarea in which computing devices 104A-N are considered to be at a samelocation, for instance, within a same conference room. When a user ofcomputing device 104A attempts to access content 108, the contentprefetcher 110A may track the current time and location of the computingdevice 104A, as well as locality data that identifies computing device104B as being within physical proximity to the computing device 104A. Ata future time, the content prefetcher 110A may identify expected content(e.g., an updated instance of content 108), an expected source (e.g.,content server 102), and an expected time of access according toprevious access patterns (e.g., being at a same physical location withcomputing device 104B at a recurring interval). The content prefetcher110A can initiate a request from the expected source for the expectedcontent at a predetermined time prior to the expected time of access. Ifthe expected source is unavailable, the content prefetcher 110A mayinitiate a request for the expected content from another member of group118, such as computing device 104B in this example.

FIG. 2 depicts another example of a block diagram of a system 200 uponwhich preemptive distribution of content may be implemented according toan embodiment. In the example of FIG. 2, the computing devices 104A-Ncan establish point-to-point communication to discover active members ofthe group 118. For instance, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, near-field communication,and the like can be used to check for neighboring computing devices104A-N, as well as location information and activation status. Effectiverange limits of the local communication interface may be used to definethe physical proximity range 116 of FIG. 1, where computing devices104A-N capable of establishing local communication are considered to bein-range. Local copies of the content 108 of FIG. 1 can be storedlocally on one or more of the computing devices 104A-N in local caches112A-N.

Each of the computing devices 104A-N can include respective instances ofprefetch memory 114A-N, prefetcher preferences 120A-N, access history122A-N, and prefetching heuristics 124A-N. Prefetcher preferences 120A-Ncan be customized by users of the computing devices 104A-N to set thesize of local cache 112A-N, the size of prefetch memory 114A-N, andother parameters (e.g., timing constraints, file size constraints,network activity constraints, activity visibility constraints, locationdata tracking constraints, group membership constraints, and the like).The content prefetcher 110A-N can track access history to the localcache 112A-N and capture information such as time, location, contentidentifier, and group membership in access history 122A. The contentprefetcher 110A-N can analyze the access history 122A-N to identify oneor more patterns associated with sequences of content accesses atregular intervals. Locality data 202 may be exchanged between computingdevices 104A-N in group 118. Locality data 202 can identify a geographiclocation of the computing devices 104A-N and may also includestatus/activity summary data, such as recent prefetching activities orthe availability of content in local cache 112A-N.

The content prefetcher 110A-N uses the patterns identified in the accesshistory 122A-N and/or locality data 202 to develop prefetchingheuristics 124A. The prefetching heuristics 124A-N can define rules forwhen the content prefetcher 110A-N should initiate a request from anexpected source for expected content at a predetermined time prior to anexpected time of access by a user of computing devices 104A-N.

As one example, five users of computing devices 104A-N meet every Fridaymorning at 11:00 AM in the same conference room. Five to fifteen minutesbefore the meeting, the meeting chairperson typically sends copies ofslides for the other users to review on computing devices 104A-N duringthe meeting. The slides are typically stored as electronic contenthaving a filename of “meeting{n}”, where “n” is a number or date. At thefourth meeting, the chairperson forgets to distribute the latest slidesprior to the meeting and access to the chairperson's computer where thecontent is stored may not presently be available. However, the contentprefetchers 110A-N of computing devices 104A-N were able to recognizethe access pattern developed over the previous three meetings and wereable to prefetch the content into prefetch memory 114A-N such that thecontent is locally available on the computing devices 104A-N.

As another example, a user of one of the computing devices 104A-Nregularly reads from a series of documents every Thursday morning. Thecontent prefetcher 110A-N recognizes the access pattern, noting that themetadata of the content indicates that the documents are regularlyupdated on Wednesday afternoons. The content prefetcher 110A-Nprefetches the updated documents on Wednesday evenings and stores thecontent to prefetch memory 114A-N. One Thursday morning when the user isunable to establish a network connection, the user is able to access thecontent that was prefetched into prefetch memory 114A-N during theprevious evening absent a user request.

As a further example, there can be a file that has never been usedbefore, but group 118 has a meeting once every other month. A contentprefetcher 110 may determine that the file is not important based on theaccess pattern alone; however, using hints retrieved from metadata via,e.g., file name pattern matching, the content prefetcher 110 can use theadditional information along with spatio-temporal hints to fetch thefile before access is requested.

FIG. 3 depicts a block diagram of a system 300 according to anembodiment. The system 300 is depicted embodied in computing device 301in FIG. 3 as an example one of the computing devices 104A-N of FIGS. 1and 2. It will be understood that similar features can be included inthe content server 102 of FIG. 1.

In an exemplary embodiment, in terms of hardware architecture, as shownin FIG. 3, the computing device 301 includes a processing device 305 anda memory device 310 coupled to a memory controller 315 and aninput/output controller 335. The input/output controller 335 can be, forexample, but not limited to, one or more buses or other wired orwireless connections, as is known in the art. The input/outputcontroller 335 may have additional elements, which are omitted forsimplicity, such as controllers, buffers (caches), drivers, repeaters,and receivers, to enable communications. Further, the computing device301 may include address, control, and/or data connections to enableappropriate communications among the aforementioned components.

In some embodiments, a touch-sensitive display 330 or similar device canbe coupled to the input/output controller 335. Alternatively, input maybe received via a keypad, keyboard, or motion sensitive interface,depicted as input device 345. Extended storage capacity may be supportedusing a memory card 355 interfaced to the input/output controller 335.The input/output controller 335 may also be coupled to one or morespeaker 365 and/or microphone 370. The computing device 301 can furtherinclude a display controller 325 coupled to the touch-sensitive display330. In an alternate embodiment, a standard video display is provided inplace of the touch-sensitive display 330 and other input devices 345,such as a keyboard and touchpad, are used to provide input to thecomputing device 301.

The processing device 305 is a hardware device for executing software,particularly software stored in memory device 310. The processing device305 can be any custom made or commercially available computer processor,a central processing unit (CPU), an auxiliary processor among severalprocessors associated with the computing device 301, asemiconductor-based microprocessor (in the form of a microchip or chipset), a macro-processor, or generally any device for executinginstructions.

The memory device 310 can include any one or combination of volatilememory elements (e.g., random access memory (RAM, such as DRAM, SRAM,SDRAM, etc.)) and nonvolatile memory elements (e.g., ROM, erasableprogrammable read only memory (EPROM), electronically erasableprogrammable read only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, programmable readonly memory (PROM), tape, compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM), flashdrive, disk, hard disk drive, diskette, cartridge, cassette or the like,etc.). Moreover, the memory device 310 may incorporate electronic,magnetic, optical, and/or other types of storage media. Accordingly, thememory device 310 is an example of a tangible computer readable storagemedium 340 upon which instructions executable by the processing device305 may be embodied as a computer program product. The memory device 310can have a distributed architecture, where various components aresituated remote from one another, but can be accessed by the processingdevice 305.

The instructions in memory device 310 may include one or more separateprograms, each of which comprises an ordered listing of executableinstructions for implementing logical functions. In the example of FIG.3, the instructions in the memory device 310 include a suitableoperating system (OS) 311 and program instructions 316. The operatingsystem 311 essentially controls the execution of other computer programsand provides scheduling, input-output control, file and data management,memory management, and communication control and related services. Whenthe computing device 301 is in operation, the processing device 305 isconfigured to execute instructions stored within the memory device 310,to communicate data to and from the memory device 310, and to generallycontrol operations of the computing device 301 pursuant to theinstructions. Examples of program instructions 316 can includeinstructions to implement the content prefetcher 110A-N of FIGS. 1 and2.

The computing device 301 may also include a global position system (GPS)receiver 320. The GPS receiver 320 may be used to identify a currentlocation of the computing device 301. An internal clock (not depicted)can also provide time of day information.

The computing device 301 also includes a network interface 360 that canestablish communication channels with one or more other computer systemsvia one or more network links. The network interface 360 can supportwired and/or wireless communication protocols known in the art. Forexample, when embodied in the computing device 104A-N of FIG. 1, thenetwork interface 360 can establish communication channels with thecontent server 102 of FIG. 1 and/or other instances of the computingdevice 104A-N. The network interface 360 may also support one or moreother types of networks, such as a cellular network and/or satellitecommunication.

Turning now to FIG. 4, a process 400 for preemptive distribution ofcontent will be described in accordance with an exemplary embodiment.The process 400 is described in reference to FIGS. 1-4 and can beimplemented by one or more of the computing devices 104A-N, and/orsystem 300 of FIGS. 1-3. When embodied in the computing device 301 ofFIG. 3, processing device 305 can be configured to perform the process400. For purposes of explanation, the process 400 is described asperformed by computing device 104A.

At block 402, computing device 104A monitors content accessed in a localcache 112A of computing device 104A. At block 404, computing device 104Atracks a time and a location of content accesses in the local cache112A. Locality data 202 may be received that identifies one or moreother computing devices 104B-N in physical proximity to the computingdevice 104A. The computing device 104A can track the locality data 202in combination with the time and the location of the content accesses.The computing device 104A may also determine membership in a group 118of computing devices 104B—N based on the locality data 202. Tracking ofthe content accesses can be performed on a group basis. Tracked data canbe stored in access history 122A.

At block 406, computing device 104A determines prefetching heuristics124A based on patterns of the time and the location of the contentaccesses as captured in access history 122A. The computing device 104Acan also incorporate patterns in the locality data 202 into theprefetching heuristics 124A.

At block 408, computing device 104A applies the prefetching heuristics124A to speculatively prefetch additional content prior to the computingdevice 104A receiving a request to access the additional content.

Computing device 104A can apply a least recently used preference modelto evict content from the local cache 112A as new content is received.Computing device 104A stores user requested data as the content 108 inthe local cache 112A. Computing device 140A can store the additionalcontent in prefetch memory 114A. Computing device 104A can manage theprefetch memory 114A as a most recently used stack. Entries in theprefetch memory 114A may be evicted based on identifying a most recentlyupdated entry that has been accessed once. Speculatively prefetching theadditional content can include identifying expected content, an expectedsource, and an expected time of access and initiating a request from theexpected source for the expected content at a predetermined time priorto the expected time of access.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify thepresence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements,and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of oneor more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements,components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended toinclude any structure, material, or act for performing the function incombination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. Thedescription of the present invention has been presented for purposes ofillustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artwithout departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Theembodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like,and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for preemptive distribution of content,the system comprising: a memory having computer readable instructions;and a processor for executing the computer readable instructions, thecomputer readable instructions including: monitoring content accessed ina local cache of a computing device; receiving locality data thatidentifies one or more other computing devices in physical proximity tothe computing device; determining membership in a group of computingdevices based on the locality data; tracking the locality data of theone or more other computing devices in combination with a time and alocation of content accesses in the local cache on a group basis of thecomputing devices seeking to access common content; determiningprefetching heuristics based on patterns of the time and the location ofthe content accesses; incorporating into the prefetching heuristics oneor more patterns from the locality data comprising an intersection ofthe time, the location, and the one or more other computing devices inphysical proximity to the computing device; and applying the prefetchingheuristics to speculatively prefetch additional content prior to thecomputing device receiving a request to access the additional content.2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer readable instructionsfurther comprise: applying a least recently used preference model toevict content from the local cache; and storing user requested data asthe content in the local cache.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer readable instructions further comprise: storing the additionalcontent in prefetch memory of the computing device; and managing theprefetch memory as a most recently used stack.
 4. The system of claim 3,wherein speculatively prefetching the additional content comprises:identifying expected content, an expected source, and an expected timeof access; and initiating a request from the expected source for theexpected content at a predetermined time prior to the expected time ofaccess, wherein entries in the prefetch memory are evicted based onidentifying a most recently updated entry that has been accessed once.5. The system of claim 1, wherein the locality data comprises ageographic location of the one or more other computing devices.
 6. Thesystem of claim 5, wherein the locality data further comprises a historyof prefetching activity of the one or more other computing devices. 7.The system of claim 6, wherein the computer readable instructionsfurther comprise: speculatively prefetching the additional content fromat least one of the one or more other computing devices based ondetermining that the history of prefetching activity includes theadditional content.
 8. The system of claim 5, wherein the locality datafurther comprises an availability status of locally cached content fromthe one or more other computing devices.
 9. The system of claim 8,wherein the computer readable instructions further comprise:speculatively prefetching the additional content from at least one ofthe one or more other computing devices based on determining that thelocally cached content from the one or more other computing devicesincludes the additional content.
 10. A computer program productcomprising a computer readable storage medium having programinstructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable bya processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising:monitoring content accessed in a local cache of a computing device;receiving locality data that identifies one or more other computingdevices in physical proximity to the computing device; determiningmembership in a group of computing devices based on the locality data;tracking the locality data of the one or more other computing devices incombination with a time and a location of content accesses in the localcache on a group basis of the computing devices seeking to access commoncontent; determining prefetching heuristics based on patterns of thetime and the location of the content accesses; incorporating into theprefetching heuristics one or more patterns from the locality datacomprising an intersection of the time, the location, and the one ormore other computing devices in physical proximity to the computingdevice; and applying the prefetching heuristics to speculativelyprefetch additional content prior to the computing device receiving arequest to access the additional content.
 11. The computer programproduct of claim 10, wherein the program instructions executable by theprocessor further cause the processor to perform the method comprising:applying a least recently used preference model to evict content fromthe local cache; and storing user requested data as the content in thelocal cache.
 12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein theprogram instructions executable by the processor further cause theprocessor to perform the method comprising: storing the additionalcontent in prefetch memory of the computing device; and managing theprefetch memory as a most recently used stack.
 13. The computer programproduct of claim 12, wherein entries in the prefetch memory are evictedbased on identifying a most recently updated entry that has beenaccessed once.
 14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein theprogram instructions executable by the processor further cause theprocessor to perform the method comprising: identifying expectedcontent, an expected source, and an expected time of access; andinitiating a request from the expected source for the expected contentat a predetermined time prior to the expected time of access.
 15. Thecomputer program product of claim 10, wherein the locality datacomprises a geographic location of the one or more other computingdevices.
 16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein thelocality data further comprises a history of prefetching activity of theone or more other computing devices.
 17. The computer program product ofclaim 16, wherein the program instructions executable by the processorfurther cause the processor to perform the method comprising:speculatively prefetching the additional content from at least one ofthe one or more other computing devices based on determining that thehistory of prefetching activity includes the additional content.
 18. Thecomputer program product of claim 15, wherein the locality data furthercomprises an availability status of locally cached content from the oneor more other computing devices.
 19. The computer program product ofclaim 18, wherein the program instructions executable by the processorfurther cause the processor to perform the method comprising:speculatively prefetching the additional content from at least one ofthe one or more other computing devices based on determining that thelocally cached content from the one or more other computing devicesincludes the additional content.